[laserbeam]

I hate the writing style. This is the kind of text you normally see from scam artists: "this cool techinque that I'm going to tell you about", "here's a personal story/testimonial", "soon I'll tell you how I did it", "watch this video if you want to learn more", and there's usually also a "buy my course if you really want to learn about it".

This is not how one shares knowledge, this is how one sells snake oil.

Thus, by default all information shared here should be considered bogus. Every claim needs to be verified (multiple hours of research). As such, I'd rathet disregard the article completely and use actual research on aphantasia as a starting point to learn about it instead.

[omnicognate]

I also hate it, for the same reason. And I hate that having read the "this one neat trick" blurb you then have to hear exactly the same information delivered vocally before getting to the technique.

However, this is the first time I've ever seen anybody even suggest a technique that might help with this, and it's something I've come to see as a real limitation. I very badly want a functioning "mind's eye" and if there's any chance practicing this for 10 minutes a day for a few months might achieve it, hell yes I'm going to try.

And when he did actually get to the technique, it wasn't "buy my book" or "sign up for this course". It was a simple and complete demonstration of something anyone can do at home for free. I didn't see any means of monetisation beyond views on the video itself, and he's welcome to his slice of my youtube premium.

I agree that the style is horrible, and that the information should be assumed to be bogus by default. But, fortunately, checking if there's any value in it for me is a cost-free, risk-free thing I can do in my spare time. Fingers crossed!

Edit: Oh, and the whole left brain, right brain thing is disappointing bollocks too. Still, I'm going to try this.

Edit 2: BTW, if you do have any serious aphantasia research sources I'd love to know about them. I've seen very little research into it. (And TBH I'm not really convinced it's worth significant research investment, any more than people not being able to whistle or raise one eyebrow is. I don't see myself as having a disorder, just an undeveloped ability.)

Edit 3: Somewhat relatedly I have also been mostly unable to hear sounds in my "mind's ear", although I am a keen amateur musician. I can imagine tunes but they are not accompanied by the timbre and richness of actual sounds. They're more of an abstraction. This is something I've made actual progress on, though. As a byproduct of learning sight-singing and transcription (as an adult, starting with movable-do sol-fa), I am able to hear sounds much more convincingly at times. I have to remember to exercise the ability, though, or I fall back to my old ways, and it still takes a lot of effort.

[dr_dshiv]

> whole left brain, right brain thing is disappointing bollocks too

Left brain right brain is a neuromyth myth. As in, there is extensive evidence for hemispheric lateralization.

[Omin]

The author himself doesn't seem like a scam artist but he looks like he falls for them. He said he heard about this technique from Michael Neill who he calls "a personal development coach, a really good guy". This "good guy" has a bunch of books and videos on youtube offering the answers to everything: Finding happiness, overcoming shyness, anxiety, being effortlessly successful with just these three easy tricks in 3 months yada yada.

And Win Wenger, who the author says this technique originally comes from, is the author of "The Einstein Factor" which is a book with similarly grandiose claims about improving your mental abilities.

[laserbeam]

I'm not saying this is a scam. It just smells of an attitude that fails at due diligence when it comes to verifying information. The author may be very well meaning but it's enough for me to not warrant a click on the video. I can't trust the information in it is checked at all.

[stevenhuang]

Nothing is being sold and all other articles on the site are about photography.

Your heuristic for identifying scam articles is overtuned and you're deferring to shallow dismissal instead of engaging with the article to your detriment.

[permo-w]

even if nothing is being sold, the fact that the author went to so much trouble to write umpteen paragraphs of dross, but didn't bother to transcribe the actual useful information. I may not be suspicious, but I am annoyed

[corysama]

The “Long Form Landing Page” is a science that has been popularized and refined since the dawn of the consumer internet. It’s all about slowly building emotional investment from the user to trick them into pressuring themselves to engaging the eventual “Call to Action”.

[QuantumGood]

...and before that it was refined as multi-page copy in direct mail, and full-page or long copy in advertisements. Even if you changed only the formatting in a direct mail piece to make the copy spread over more pages, response rates went up.

[drt5b7j]

Bingo

[larodi]

i vote this being scam